What is an email drip campaign?

A Facebook fan who signs a petition might receive subsequent emails encouraging him to donate, share the petition with friends or share a story on Facebook

A drip campaign is an email marketing strategy intended to get subscribers to take specific actions over the course of the campaign. Drip campaigns consists of a series of messages delivered over a specific timeframe.

For example, a Facebook fan who signs a petition would then receive a series of emails over the next few weeks encouraging him to donate, share the petition with friends or share a story on Facebook.

The benefits of a drip campaign are that you can target the right messages to the right people at the right time. Drip campaigns also tend to get more opens and click-throughs than your run-of-the-mill monthly newsletter. Finally, after you set one up, drip campaigns essentially run themselves.

How to create a email drip campaign for your nonprofit

The technical steps for creating drip campaigns vary depending upon what email marketing software you use, but generally follow these steps (the example screen shots are taken from my Aweber account):

Create clear goals and objectives

1Decide what the objectives are for the campaign. Do you want petition signers to donate? Do you want folks who create a peer-to-peer fundraising page to get the most out of their fundraiser?

Select your segments

2Will you be targeting new petition signers? Lapsed donors? Current donors? This all depends on what your objectives are.

Determine message quantity and frequency

3Decide on the frequency and number of messages. You have to strike a balance between reminding them about the campaign and being a total pain in the ass.

Your message frequency will depend on what actions you want people to take, when you want those actions taken and how long the campaign is.

Configure your message frequency

7In terms of how the drip part of all this works, the timing of your messages is typically kicked off when someone opts into various stages of the campaign.

For example, when someone signs a petition, he or she will receive an email the next day and then once a week for the next month. If that same person donates during that period, he or she is removed from this list and added to a different list with different, more relevant massages.

Add an unsubscribe option to each message

8At the bottom of each message, give subscribers the option of unsubscribing. The last thing you need to is to piss people off by not making this easy. Again, most email marketing solutions automatically do this as well.

Launch your drip campaign

9Your campaign is launched as soon as the Web forms are live and people are aware of the campaign. We’ll talk about promoting your campaign later on, but for now just know that you need to promote it via multiple channels or it won’t work.

One important thing, though: Measure right away — don’t wait after your campaign is over. The data you gather from day one will help you avoid unintended disasters by adjusting the messaging and frequency during the campaign. Measuring is your campaign’s GPS system.

Conduct a postmortem

11Unless someone was killed with your drip campaign, your postmortem will simply be a discussion (in person preferably) about what went well, what didn’t and how your organization is more capable.

What else can you add about drip campaigns? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section. John Haydon delivers social web strategy solutions for “the quick, the smart, and the slightly manic.” Curious? Then connect up: Contact John by email, see his profile page, visit the John Haydon blog, follow him on Twitter and Google Plus or leave a comment.